The archives of the articles, reviews, interviews and other ramblings written by Sarah E. Jahier (aka Fatally Yours).

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Isle of the Damned (2008)

Isle of the Damned is a joyously gory, fantastically
funny spoof of the Italian cannibal movies of the 70′s and early 80′s.
The film is a spot-on spoof, complete with atrociously dubbed dialogue,
over-acting, 70′s ‘staches, bad retro outfits, a Eurosleaze soundtrack
and an intro done completely in Italian subtitles. The film pretends to
be a “long-lost” film from “legendary” director Antonello Giallo and
“banned in over 492 countries.” All this and much, much more had me
rolling on the floor laughing one minute and shaking my head in
disbelief another! It is one of the best, most accurate spoofs I’ve ever
seen!

Jack Steele (Larry Gamber) is a private investigator who is down in
Argentina assisting treasure-hunting sleazeball Harold Thompson
(Patrician Rosa) in finding Marco Polo’s long-lost treasure. Thompson
believes the treasure is on an isolated tropical island and so they,
along with Steele’s slightly effeminate adopted son Billy (Peter Crates)
and a trio of pirates as their crew, go there to seek it out. One
problem – the island is home to an indigenous tribe of cannibals hungry
for human flesh! After being attacked, the remaining survivors are
rescued by an eccentric anthropologist, Alexis Kindcaid (Keith
Langsdorf), and his ex-assassin man-servant Cain (Dustin Edwards), who
live in a mansion on the island. Thompson is still determined to find
the treasure, but as the cannibals track their every move will the group
survive the Isle of the Damned?

Isle of the Damned is a riot from start to finish.
As soon as I heard that “bow-chika-bow-bow” 70′s music and saw the
opening credits, I was hooked. The zany dialogue, over-zealous acting,
bad hair/moustaches/clothes added to the charm and the accurate feel of
the film. It also does a good job of rising above being “just a spoof”
and doesn’t just rely on gags to move the story along. It has
sympathetic characters (no matter how goofy they were) that we actually
care about and a fast-paced storyline.

The actors themselves do a fantastic job, especially since they must
rely on body language to get the characters’ emotions across because
their voices have been dubbed. The hilarious over-acting that occurs is
intentional and perfectly mimics the acting in a low-budget, 70′s
cannibal flick. I really have to give props to all the actors for
flawlessly playing their characters. Even the people who played the
cannibals were excellent!

The execution of the film was also amazing. Writer Mark Leake crafted
a very memorable spoof to cannibal films and director Mark Colegrove
brought that vision to life. This film could have easily slipped into
over-the-top, eye-rolling cheesiness, but both Leake and Colegrove
succeeded in crafting not only a memorable film but also a believable
one! And on a low budget, no less! For example, the film is supposed to
be set in a lush, tropical jungle…but it’s obviously not. Instead, there
are intercut scenes of jungle animals (a technique which many 70′s
cannibal movies also used). The film is so good, though, that this and
the forest it is actually filmed in work!! You do believe that they are
in an Argentinean jungle! This just proves the skill and care that this
film was made with. Director of photography David J. Kratz also sets up
some very interesting shots that give the film a professional feel.

As for the gore, there are several great scenes and overall the gore
is done extremely well. In the first 20 minutes or so we get an
effective and very bloody penis-chomping scene (one of the many homages
to famous cannibal films)! Other gems include a fetus feast in which an
unborn baby is ripped from the womb, a head cracked open and brains
gobbled up, torsos being ripped apart and eaten, and even a cool
face-ripping scene! The film even features a pole-impaling scene as a
loving homage to the infamous cannibal-movie-to-end-all-cannibal-movies –
Cannibal Holocaust.

Of course, Isle of the Damned’s tone is quite different from Holocaust’s
grim one. There are plenty of hilarious/raunchy gags, including the
hilariously dubbed voices, Thomspon’s being sodomized by the cannibals,
everyone’s amazingly ridiculous mustaches and many, many others.

If I had seen Isle of the Damned in 2008 it would
have surely made my “best of” list. I can’t tell you enough how this is
one of the best genre spoofs I have ever seen! Everything from the
titles, the dubbing, the costumes and the look of the film recall sleazy
70′s cannibal/exploitation flicks. You would be a fool to not track
this down!